Sunday, April 11, 2010

In a Warseer post entitled "GWS Ironic Balancing Act" Elvinltl rages against the evils of codex creep in a post that ironically contains exactly the same amount of real irony as AlanisMorissette's "Ironic."* Thanks to Lauby for e-mailing me this bit of silliness. Read below to see what happens when an idiot with less than no understanding of how businesses operate attempts to act as a consultant for GW.

Elvinltl- The Blood Angels new Codex have ~oh it have, sweet I am gets it soon just been released. I supposed many of you might have already noticed and aware of the fact that newer armies tend to be more powerful. When a new codex releases, there will always be this new shiny tank that is super awesome and a certain infantry that is just too good for its point cost. Also, this entirely new never before seen unit that is a mandatory for a tournament army.

It just feel that the Warhammer 40k is just becoming an Arms Race ~if I had to guess, I'd say that this was supposed to be the ironic part. Each time, GWS simply releases new edition of codexes introducing newer and more powerful units.

It does not look like they are attempting to balance the game but instead trying to up their sales and profit by forcing players to buy new codex. Invest in newer more powerful models. In fact, the entire concept of releasing newer edition of codex per race is simply strange. I understand they have a lot of codexes and they could simply keep udating race per race in a huge loop forcing us to buy and buy codexes. Worst still, the when the new codex comes out, the army generally tend to be more powerful relative to older armies and the game becomes inbalance....~so wait it is in balance? I think you mean imbalanced again. Ironic? ~oh this was supposed to be the irony. weak attempt at best

From the way it is now, 40k battles are largely dominated by mechanised armies these days and sooner or later they will review the rules to encourage more infantry. New rulebook again. @.@

There is simply no end to it.

In my opinion, they should embark on a project to update all codexes per versions. Like for example, they release a 10th Edition Rulebook, they will also release a 10th edition codex for each respective race to promote a more balanced game on overall. I love the game but I think GWS will need to do some housekeeping and review their practises. I do not play LOTR but I think the game is kind of a failure and they should concentrate on Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy. ~yeah, why would anybody want to offer a diversified product assortment when there is some reasonable competition developing on the horizon Their franchise is popular (Dawn of War, Dawn of War 2, Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning) and there are many more books on their rich lores as compared to Warcraft. ~what the fuck does this have to do with anything. Blizzard only competes with GW in the broadest of sense, as they don't have any products in the same category as GW.As compared to Blizzard, I personally feel GWSWarhammer is much more developed with more potential to be successful. However, they really need someone to advertise and market their products properly. ~you're hired you lovable idiot. now go out there and run that company into the ground the best way you know how.

Now for my rebuttal:

FUCK YOU! (_l_)

Just because you took a business class in school doesn't mean you have any idea what the fuck you're talking about. I also dare say that codex creep is pretty much all in your feeble, chickenlittling mind and that your idea of how GW should be run would kill the brand off.

Duck and cover, the new codices are coming, run for the hills. Just because something is new and you are too stupid to figure out an effect way to counter or ignore it doesn't mean that it's overpowered and it doesn't mean that there is a mini arms race going on. You are largely mistaking versatility for power. By citing trends in codex design that exist only in your head you are blind to the fact that the newer codices are not considerably more powerful than the older ones, they just have a greater variety of good builds. Yes the game has changed and left a few people in the dust, but that's not codex creep, it's just a case of an army being designed for a different rules set.

I'm glad that you think simultaneously releasing all codices will work out. But do you want to know why that is the dumbest idea ever? If GW were to release everything at once they would peak their entire sales cycle at one specific point and sales for the rest of the year would suffer badly. Not to mention that all of their own products would be in direct competition with each other causing them to sell dramatically less units over the course of a year. This doesn't even take into account the logistics involved in trying to release that much content at the same time. A team of game designers can only do so much. Their increasingly good design would suffer for this and over time the company would run itself out of the industry.

I can't believe that you would even suggest that GW should not release new versions of their products. If they never edited anything the only new players would buy stuff, as the existing customer base would rarely have the impetus to buy anything new. So not only is this incredibly boring, but it would be about the worst business decision they could make. By updating products, they are able to make things interesting for us gamers by using/creating new trends to spice the game up. In a static system, new play styles would rarely show up and everything would stagnate. This drives their sales and allows them to continue to operate. Need a real world example? Scrabble, which has undergone few changes since its creation in 1938, is seeing its profits decline despite extending the brand to other lines such as card games, video games, and so on. Now they are spicing things up and changing a fundamental part of the game to attract attention and drive sales. Soon, for the first time ever, proper nouns will be added to the scrabble lexicon. So you can see that sometimes even line extensions (like GW moving into video games, new miniature games, movies, literature, etc) are not enough to keep a brand alive. Sometimes you need to shake it up to keep it going.

You note yourself that the cycle exists as it is to make money. No shit Sherlock. Corporations usually need to have some sort of incoming capital to remain in business. GW is no different. It isn't a Non-profit entity run for your benefit. If you want to continue playing their games you should probably consider investing in the company's future by buying some of their products now and again.

========================================================================*In case you did not suffer through the black hole that was 90s pop music, this song contains no actual irony, much like the warseer post. It seems Alanis has not read a dictionary before. Ironic, don't you think?

15 comments:

Man ... what is wrong with the world? Why is the internet so full of idiot powergamers?? These guys can't stop QQing about new codexes. In 3rd edition it was the same thing ... a new codex would come out ... people would rant and rave ... then learn to beat whatever the "unbeatable" list was ... WITH their old armies. Then the QQing would stop and there would be no more codex creep talk. I 100% agree that "codex creep" is 99.8% attributable to people just not knowing how to play against the new list. Ya there might be a .02% statistical advantage in some unit or something ... but in the grand scheme of things any "creep" is so minimal ... it doesn't exist. I've never seen GW introduce anything that is broken. The suggestion that all codexes be released with new rules is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Why can't people understand that the world does not revolve around them and their little personal wants and desires???? GW is a FOR PROFIT corporation ... it isn't a non-profit enterprise designed to cater to power gaming 40K players who enjoy beating 13 year old kids up by cheating. No ... GW doesn't consider that demographic very important. What GW does consistently do is release awesome products related to the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy universes. They aren't making magic the gathering ... they aren't making a WoW style MMO. Balance is considered ... but most purchasers of the GW products don't even play in tournaments. They play (if they even get to very often) in garages, living rooms, rec rooms and on kitchen tables ... against their friends ... for fun. To those guys ... who are reading the latest Dan Abnet masterpiece ... they just want fun with mini gaming in the universe they love. They don't give a fuck about what Goatlover or Jawanadz is crying about in terms of codex creep. To me the bigger worries about GW gaming seem to go unnoticed by the codex creep/powergamer whiners. My biggest concern is a lack of GW direct product support in the US. Its about a declining quality of White Dwarf ... its about the lack of a US Forgeworld production facility. If people want to go crazy against the non-existent codex creep ... maybe they should look at actual problems first ... then bitch about the imagined problems second. Anyway good post man!

Shut-up Dethtron! Elvinltl got an A in his Business class! WTF do you know??

More utter BS from the world of the interwebz!

I can't believe somebody could think this sh*t up! Holy cow, I'm sure even the little 10 year-old nooby noobs could come up with a decent answer to this point!

I wouldn't mind if it started with a decent point. From all of the lists I've seen so far, I would say BA are no more 'OP' than anything else that has been released recently, and seem to present quite a challenge to get a good build from.

Codex creep has never bothered me. Look at this way if GW brought out a new codex which didn't have shiny new units from the previous one and made adjustments then what would be the point just to update it? From a business point of view they wouldn't make money and super cool hard new toys make it attractive.

Though in time the super cool rock hard codex creep builds just slot in once word it round how to build them i.e dual lash, nob bikers, mech guard, vulcan space marines, thunderwolf calvary etc etc.

Just learn to adapt. Let's face it all new codexes will have something new in and be better than the last, it's because they need to sell! A re-tweaked codex isn't viable to be printed.

I know everyone demands all the books at once but comeon, how long does it take theinternet to deal with one codex every 3 months. Orks are still powerful according to the internet and it's what, 2 years old at minimum? If you releaed a new rule set and 12+ books at once, well you'd simply overload their little brains with information.

Not to mention you'd flood the market with supply whilst not inflating demand. And how much work would GW staff have to do? Can you imagine the modellers producing 200 new sculpts? It's just plain infeasible not to mention poor business.

Sure their codex production rate isn't fantastic but it keeps us all waiting. It keeps the game fresh. It adds some damn zing baby. And I'd much rather have the fantastic models they produce than lots of sub-par models. Add in that GW has done an excellent job lately for codex balance and options and...ya I hate warseer:).

Their production queue is fucking fantastic right now. I wouldn't worry too much about 6th ed for the time being, though. I would predict several more subpar rules expansions to come out. It's a great way for them to test the markets reaction to new rules with less cost than a full new edition. Ever notice that Cities of Death is totally redundant, as most of the rules (minus strategems) showed up in 5th ed? Profiting off of your market research is a win situation.

Agree with Dethtron there *cough battle missions cough*. Also, remember before 4th came out there was a huge amount of "trial rules" sent out. Don't know if it was the same for 5th as I quit during 4th (silly Apoc) but I imagine we'll know about it long before ithappens.

As long as tanks don't get a huge shaft like in 4th. "I'm in a tank woot!" *shoots the tank* "I'm dead but that Tank isn't! :("

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